


Prototype

by EmilliaGryphon, Skarabrae_stone



Series: Groot Steve Rocket Bucky: Scenes From a Life [2]
Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), MCU, Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Hurt, Hurt/Comfort, Hydra (Marvel), Memories, Origin Story, Origins, Platonic Bonding, Stucky - Freeform, To be Bucky is to feel guilty, grocket - Freeform, platonic intimacy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-10
Updated: 2018-10-10
Packaged: 2019-07-28 20:43:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16249433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmilliaGryphon/pseuds/EmilliaGryphon, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skarabrae_stone/pseuds/Skarabrae_stone
Summary: Bucky is all too used to terrible memories of his time at Hydra resurfacing. After a particularly harrowing recollection, Bucky realizes an awful truth about Rocket's past.*Content warnings: discussions of torture, animal abuse, graphic descriptions of violence, and ptsd.*





	Prototype

1945

“Move, soldat!”

The man who was no longer Bucky Barnes, not yet the Winter Soldier grunted at the rough shove of the guards. His eyes tried to focus past the fog of pain as he was escorted down the long windowless hall.

“Move!”

The man who had been Bucky looked up as he walked, glaring out from the top of his mask. He knew the routine, better to do as they said then resist and get another beating. His eyes scanned the dull concrete walls; eventually, the one on the right-hand side opened to a window, into another room. He frowned, his mind never having seen this chamber before. Yet again, the tests did odd things to his brain. Cages of animals, the man who had been Bucky recognized them. More scientists and doctors restraining the creatures, taking notes. A fox being tasered, a recently dead rabbit being dissected. A raccoon kit dumped back in its cage, squeaking with the thud.

“Stop,” The guard ordered.

The man who had been Bucky halted, watching the animal lab as two agents and doctor discussed something. Whatever it was, it was not important. Either way, the man who was Bucky would have his agony waiting for him at the end of the hall. A deer limped back and forth in its cage; a gloved hand reached out and injected a coyote with something that made it wobble and collapse. The man who had been Bucky searched with feverish eyes and stopped.

“Move!” The guard ordered. The little raccoon kit, barely a week old, stared at him through the bars of its cage, baring its teeth, the red brown eyes piercing.

“I said move, Soldat!”

Another jabbing pain stung the man’s side and he lumbered forward towards the end of the hall. Towards his unmaking.

75 Years Later 

“Are you sure it was him?” Steve murmured, fingers stroking Bucky’s arm as they lay together in bed.

Bucky stared at the glowing city lights through the window, listening to the traffic and shouting from people down below, a lullaby he’d missed so much. Steve’s arms around his waist tightened, head resting against his shoulder from behind.

“I’m sure,” Bucky whispered, knot in his stomach.

“Are you going to tell him?” Steve asked, a soft kiss to his neck. Bucky turned, examining Steve’s face in the nighttime shadows.

“I don’t know. What do you think I should do?”

He watched Steve consider for a moment, carefully calculating every possible outcome with equal thoughtfulness. It made him love him all the more.“I think you should do what you think is right.”

Bucky shook his head, rolling over onto his back and pulling Steve down on top of him. “That’s not very helpful.”

Steve’s musical laughter lifted Bucky’s gloomy heart. “It’s really up to you, Buck. But whatever you decide you know I’ll be with you…”

Bucky kissed him before Steve could finish, tasting that sweetness tinged with its own sorrow. “Til the end of the line.” Bucky broke the kiss for a moment, holding Steve’s face an inch from his own. “I know.”

Steve grinned goofily, kissing him again. “Good. Now, we going to agonize over impossible decisions, or do something else?”

Bucky felt the heat rise in his cheeks. “Well, you know how much I love analyzing my traumatic past, but if you _insist_ , I suppose we can...do something else. What did you have in mind?”

Steve reached up, running his fingers through his hair, and kissed his chest. “I’ll show you.”

—

Despite the pleasure of the nights, the knowledge of his part in Rocket’s creation ate at Bucky throughout the days for every day that week. He could barely look at the raccoonoid even as the two of them moved through the small apartment. Every now and then, Bucky would spare a grunt in response to Rocket’s demands and would turn away, avoiding him whenever possible. Still, the guilt threatened to consume him, and would not be contained. After hours of overthinking, Bucky managed to narrow the consequences of telling Rocket the truth down to two possible outcomes: he’d get  shot, or he’d get shot more than once. Neither were ideal, so Bucky settled on dropping the confession unless Rocket himself brought up the subject.

Unfortunately for him, the raccoonoid did just that several days later, after the four of them had been playing cards and drinking beer in the living room. Groot turned in for the night first, growing them each a flower before taking off down the hall to his room.

Steve followed suit. “Good night, guys.” He stood, throwing in his cards.

“You’re leaving?” Bucky accused, fixing him with a look. Sure, he’d decided to let Rocket bring up the subject first, but Steve was not helping by leaving the two of them alone.

“I’m gonna go finish the drawing I was working on.” He kissed Bucky on the head, waved to Rocket and departed with a wink.

When the door shut behind him, Bucky shivered with the chill of the unspoken words lingering in the air of the room. Rocket hissed, finishing his beer, and began to reshuffle the cards.

“You gotta step up your poker game Barnes, you’re losing to a genetically modified….whatever I am. ”

Bucky leaned back against the sofa, taking a swig of his own beer and set it down. _There it was, the door was wide open..._ He took a deep breath. “Prototype.”

A tense silence fell between them, Rocket’s ear twitched slowly. He looked over his shoulder to Bucky, glaring.

“Prototype? What...what are you saying, man?”

_Too late to go back now, just tell him. He deserves to know._

Bucky leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and folding his hands in nervousness.   **“** What I’m saying is….the reason they did those things to you, created you...was because they were perfecting their tests. So they could do them on me.”

He waited for Rocket to turn on him, expected to be staring down the barrel of a gun. But Rocket only fully turned to face him, eyes glaring suspiciously.

 **“** Tsch **,** ain’t true! Your back from when, caveman times?” His voice rose in anger.

 **“** 1940s,” Bucky answered as calmly as he could manage.

Rocket’s clawed hand balled into a fist, his tail lashing. **“** Whatever! I wasn’t even around then! How could I be…”

With that the walls came down, tears of some ineffable emotion took hold behind Bucky’s eyes, heart hammering. “89P13!” He managed, voice hoarse. “That was your number! I saw it. Burned into your ear. I saw you when they were taking me down for another test. They were...They experimented with cryogenics too. I thought I was the first, but…”

Rocket starred up at him, eyes wide with a fear that was quickly covered by a cutting glare. “What do you mean by that?” he growled.

Bucky lowered his head once more. If he closed  his eyes, he could see that labratory, the cages, the animals...

“The stuff they did to me it ….it….was precise. Invasive…..so many times I thought I was going to die. I ...I...wanted to die, but they made sure I didn’t. I was too valuable. A chief asset….they needed a prototype, Rocket. Something more…” The words died in his mouth; he couldn’t bring himself to say it. Suddenly, the city lights outside seemed to have gone out, replaced only by Rocket’s glowing red gaze.

The raccoonoid looked away, eyes shifting, piecing it together. Bucky glanced up, watching the fur on the creature’s body shaking.

“They needed something expendable. Exploitable. Something cheap that could be replaced with little cost...but close enough to human biology. A mammal, a rodent. One large enough to withstand the tests, docile… like a raccoon.” Rocket spoke the last few words so softly Bucky could hardly hear him.

 **“** I’m so sorry...If I hadn’t…”

“No!” Rocket snapped.

Bucky withdrew his head from his hands to see the raccoonoid’s unreadable face leaning closer to him. “Don’t be sorry! If anyone here’s to blame, it’s me!”

Bucky opened his mouth to speak but Rocket continued, words moving as rapidly as his own thundering heart.

“I should’ve failed the tests, should’ve clawed out my implants…sabotaged the experiments...I….I should’ve died,” he wished for it with such longing Bucky winced.

Rage replaced the sorrow within Bucky, rage for the scientists who’d tortured them both, who robbed them of normal lives.

“Maybe if I’d just dropped dead they would’ve rethought the project, cancelled it.”

“Want to know what would’ve happened if you’d died?” Bucky’s voice mounted despite the hour. “They would’ve ripped out your cybernetics, tossed your pelt in an incinerator and moved on to  the next poor animal! It wouldn’t’ve made a damn difference!”

Rocket leapt up at that, fur on edge, his claws tightened on the couch cushion beside Bucky, his teeth bared. Bucky reached out, the impulse to physically comfort strong within him as his hand moved to touch the fur of Rocket’s arm. The raccoonoid shrank back, crouching on all fours, hissing, his teeth bared and ears flat.

“Don’t touch me!” He snarled the warning with the same terror he’d seen in Rocket as a kit when the scientists with the gloved hands approached him.

Bucky dropped his hand, Rocket’s fright searing his heart. A heartbeat passed, another one, then another, the weight of the silence threatening to crush Bucky.

“I don’t want your pity, Barnes,” The raccoonoid said after a second, though with less venom the before. He blinked, stepping closer once more, head lowered as if out of a daze, embarrassed.

“You were a kit, Rocket!” Bucky’s voice broke. “A baby!” The image of the small raccoon burned into his mind, the pathetic squeaking cries for help echoing in his ears. “For God's sakes, you’d barely opened your eyes, you were probably no more than a week old! I let them do that to you, to all the creatures they had in there-- I--” He heaved a breath, trying to calm himself. “All this time, I thought, at least it was just me-- at least, if they were torturing me, if they had me, they weren’t doing it to anyone else. But-- but that’s not true. I was just the-- the end product, the result, and you… you paid the price.” His pulse was no longer racing with anxiety; instead, he felt hollow, worn out and exhausted. “I just wish I’d at least tried to save you,” he said. “Any of you.”

There was a long silence; then a small paw landed gently on his forearm. Bucky raised his head, hardly daring to believe it, and found himself meeting Rocket’s red eyes.

“The only human who ever made me feel less alone in this whole dast galaxy once told me we were alive and they weren’t and that was all that mattered.” Rocket’s voice trailed off and he reached for Groot’s unfinished beer on the table, draining it in a single gulp. “He was right,”

It took Bucky a moment, but he smiled sadly, remembering their first encounter, the first time he’d spoken to anyone other then Steve in any detail about his torture at the hands of Hydra.

 **“** He was, huh?”

 **“** Yeah,” Rocket whispered, “he was.” he looked up at Bucky and managed a bittersweet grin.  One paw still rested on Bucky's arm and the two of them watched the reflection of the lights out the window. Outside, traffic still rumbled by, even at this late hour; music filtered up from a nearby apartment, and a siren echoed somewhere in the distance. Bucky and Rocket sat together, just close enough to touch, in companionable silence. Later, there would be other conversations, and the nightmares that inevitably followed this kind of revelation. For now, though, they kept vigil together, drawing comfort in each other’s presence as the night slowly drifted toward dawn.


End file.
